Sonoma Valley Film Society hires new Executive Director for 2009 Festival

Louisa Percudani will take the reins as the new executive director of the Sonoma Valley Film Festival in May 2008. Current executive and festival director Marc Lhormer will be leaving the organization this April. Percudani’s hiring comes after an exhaustive search by the Film Society to locate an executive director with strong “community outreach” skills. Percudani currently is the executive director of the eleven year old Newport International Film Festival. She took that position following her term as managing director of the Sedona International Film Festival.
According to Percudani, “Sonoma Valley possesses a talent for growing excellence. I look forward to embracing that tradition and working with the highly experienced festival team to produce an event that will grow to become more of an integral part of the fabric of the community. Percudani‘s plans for the 2009 film season include expanding the festival’s work with the SVHS Film Department as well as bringing in films year round, available to everyone in the community. “Film affects all walks of life,” said Percudani, “You can walk into any theater, anywhere and see this diversity reflected in the audience.”
Kevin McNeely, chairman of the SV Film Society board spoke highly of both Percudani’s experience and the important work of Marc and Brenda Lhormer
“Louisa comes to the Sonoma Film Society with experience from running two national film festivals – Sedona (Arizona) and Newport (Rhode Island). She knows that running a successful festival means achieving strong community relationships in both areas of local and national sponsorship, and building active membership in the Film Society. Louisa is up to the challenge of continuing the fine work that Marc and Brenda Lhormer have accomplished with the Sonoma Valley High School film making program under the tutelage of Peter Hansen. Louisa represents a new vision for the Sonoma Film Society, one that will assure our community of first class film festivals to run for many years into the future. It has been a pleasure and honor to work with Marc and Brenda, and the society is extremely grateful for the contributions they have made to the Sonoma Valley Film Festival. To take a popular message that resounds with most political campaigns today – ‘Change is Good’. I look forward to Sonoma meeting Louisa Percudani.”